Local News

WATSONVILLE—In a historic move at Tuesday’s City Council meeting, the City of Watsonville officially apologized to the local Filipino community for the 1930 anti-Filipino race riots, which ended in the death of one man and ignited unrest across California.  It did so in a resolution...

Two people were injured Tuesday morning after a man slammed into a school bus holding dozens of students. The collision on the 900 block of Green Valley Road north of Casserly Road at 7:30am caused the bus to burst into flames. The driver, a 28-year-old male...

WATSONVILLE—A Santa Cruz man has been arrested on suspicion of killing his reported girlfriend at an apartment complex on the 300 block of Clifford Avenue Tuesday evening. Watsonville Police Department spokeswoman Michelle Pulido said Mexican authorities near the San Luis, Ariz. border crossing to Mexico...

WATSONVILLE—The Watsonville man who died early Friday morning in a solo-vehicle crash on Amesti Road has been identified as Andres Garcia Vidal. California Highway Patrol officer Sam Courtney said Vidal, 33, was driving a blue 1998 Volkswagen Beetle eastbound on Amesti Road east of Cypress...

WATSONVILLE—A 20-year-old Salinas man died in a head-on crash on the Riverside Drive Highway 1 overcrossing in Watsonville on Nov. 20. Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s spokeswoman Ashley Keehn identified the victim as Cesar Romero. Sam Courtney of the California Highway Patrol said Romero was driving...

UPDATE: Suspect turns himself in to Watsonville Police Department. ORIGINAL ARTICLE: Two people were killed and two were injured in a shooting at a Pajaro bar early Tuesday morning. According to Monterey County Undersheriff Keith Boyd, deputies responded to El Torero Bar at 540 Salinas Road just...

SANTA CRUZ COUNTY—A serial killer who murdered 13 people nearly five decades ago—most of them in Santa Cruz County—was denied parole Thursday during a virtual hearing. Herbert Mullin, 74, will not be eligible for parole for another seven years. He is in custody at Mule...

SANTA CRUZ—The man who was 15 when he kidnapped, raped and murdered 8-year-old Madyson “Maddy” Middleton and then dumped her body in a recycling bin was sentenced Tuesday to juvenile prison until he turns 25 in October 2024. Adrian “A.J.” Gonzalez, now 21, must also...